


Deleted Scenes from Giant-Size X-Men: Nightcrawler

by NotQuiteHydePark



Category: New Mutants (Comics), New X-Men: Academy X, X-Men (Comicverse)
Genre: F/F, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Smut, Multi, Puns & Word Play, Queer History, Vibrators
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-06
Updated: 2020-05-06
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:28:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24035848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NotQuiteHydePark/pseuds/NotQuiteHydePark
Summary: Illyana slaps Trevor so hard it hurts. “It’s only funny,” she says, “till someone loses an eye.”
Relationships: Cessily Kincaid/Laura Kinney/Sooraya Qadir, Douglas Ramsey/Warlock (New Mutants), Jean Grey/Logan (X-Men), Jean Grey/Scott Summers, Kitty Pryde/Illyana Rasputin, Logan (X-Men)/Scott Summers
Comments: 4
Kudos: 22





	Deleted Scenes from Giant-Size X-Men: Nightcrawler

Trevor moves through the woods outside the supposedly deserted mansion with the other three mutants and Lockheed. We see them face-on, then from behind and above, as if we were perched in the tallest trees.

“Infrared. Night vision. Aural. Thermal. This place looks empty,” Trevor says, extending one hand, an eye in its palm, “but it isn’t. I’m seeing recent movement everywhere.”

“Human?” Kurt asks.

“Mutant,” Trevor says. “My other eyes are open to the history of this place, and hoo boy. Just what went on in the grounds alone… It’s a good thing Professor X never knew. Wait, he did know. He just didn’t want you to know he knew.”

“How do you know?” Doug asks, while Illyana smirks.

“I don’t have to know. I see.” The eye in Trevor’s left nostril blinks on its own. “This eye sees into the past directly by looking at kinetic traces. And no, I can’t see into the future: I’d get kicked off Krakoa if I could. Or maybe I wouldn’t tell, if I could.”

“Trevor, would you keep anything that important from the Quiet Council?” Illyana asks him.

“I wouldn’t, but you would.” (She nods.) “This other eye sees aromatic traces. Hormones. Pheromones. And this eye sees electromagnetic fields. You remember when Warlock crash-landed on the mansion lawn and disrupted a slumber party?”

Doug and Illyana nod. “It was right over there. With this eye I can still see the sparks. It’s like yesterday, for me, if I concentrate.”

The ground grows swampy as they approach the terrace and the mansion itself. “Was that a giant rat? Something’s scurrying,” Illyana says, sword at the ready. “Can you see anything the rest of us can’t”

“Rodents of unusual eyes? I don’t think they exist.”

“What else do you see?” Doug’s blushing a little.

“I can’t make out—” Trevor concentrates; five of the eyes on his handsome face squint in unison. “I can’t make out with the woman over there, because she’s at least ten years in the past, but she’s leaning towards me, making out with someone else who has a less distinctive trace. Oh. It’s Xi’an! They’re really cute together. Awwww.”

“Who?” Illyana and Doug ask in unison.

“A human girl in a green leather jacket. A girl from Salem Center, I bet, who had absolutely no other connection to mutants or superpowers or the Xavier School.”

“Good choice,” Kurt says. “Ach, liebe. Ewige liebe.”

Then Lockheed lashes out with a roar and a blast of flame.

“I think he thinks he’s seen Pete Wisdom,” Doug remarks. Illyana nods.

“No way,” Trevor says. “I’ve got a pretty good eye for the ridiculous, and another that’s mostly about spotting Gary Stus, and they’re pretty much seeing zippo. A few other eyes are definitely tracking lost plotlines, though.”

Trevor gets distracted by a burnt-out hybrid vehicle in the driveway, parked just before the mansion shut down. Kurt notices it too, “Eyes on the Prius?” he asks. Trevor rolls a few eyes.

They go into the mansion, following the apparition of Rachel Grey-Summers, dressed as a hound and speaking a mix of English and alien languages.

“Trevor,” Doug says as they enter, “did the Criterion Collection people get back to you?”

“The offer to put you on retainer for simultaneous translation and subtitles while I did commentary on all the camera angles and everything? Not yet. But we’d make a good team.”

“When your team was here, did you ever build fires in the fireplace?” Trevor asks Kurt.

“Nein. Was siehst du?”

“What do you see?” Doug translates almost automatically.

“It’s like someone from years ago is striking sparks into flame with some sort of metal poker, three prongs, like a barbecue, metal forks and smoke and fire, but controlled… no, it’s two people… or three people, all together; one is on fire, seen with my psychic eye, like a giant bird on fire, and another is holding two giant barbecue forks, and there’s a third wearing glasses… They’re leaning into each other. They’re all on a couch. No, a bed. The fire’s inside a person on a bed. The glasses are dark red. The forks are part of his hands? Oh.”

“Sie leibt sie biede,” Kurt contributes.

“That’s German for thruple,” Doug explains to nobody in particular.

Lockheed, bored and anxious, flaps away. “Did he head upstairs or downstairs?” Kurt asks.

“Not sure, but if we go up those stairs we can go back down at the end of the corridor.”

Four bipedal mutants climb a once-grand staircase now in disrepair, with vines and what look like dead beetles’ husks. “Oh,” Trevor says. “Oh,” and then he smiles.

“That was Kitty’s bedroom,” Doug says. “Sorry, Kate’s bedroom.”

“And mine,” Illyana clarifies.

“I’m not sure I’m supposed to be seeing this,” Trevor blurts out. “That’s some really cute sleepwear, though, with the light blue cotton trim. You two are the absolute cutest. it’s like you just learned to kiss. And that thing where you’ve got one of your hands inside an ankle sock and then she phases through the—”

Illyana slaps Trevor so hard it hurts. “It’s only funny,” she says, “till someone loses an eye.”

The four-plus-one team moves stealthily down the deserted hallway, past the staircase that led all the way up to Storm’s aerie (now open to the elements), past another door that’s half wood, half circuitry. Now Doug’s blushing hard.

“Douglas Ramsey,” Trevor says. “That’s not a toaster, is it? Oh. You could fit inside him when he was shaped like that? OK. Those circuits are glowing like orange heck. Even from that long ago. Doug. Omigod. What exactly did that appendage do?”

“None of your beeswax,” Illyana says, making as if to slap him again. Doug’s right arm, the one that’s part Warlock, flexes and glows.

“Hazardous chemicals!” Trevor says as they come to the last turn, the set of dorm rooms before the back staircase that leads down. “My chemical eyes are seeing toxic metals. No, just a history of toxic metals.”

“Lead?” Kurt asks, surprised and fearful. What if all those years trying to keep young mutants safe had not protected them from the most prosaic of public health hazards?

“No, mercury vapor,” Trevor says. “Oh, never mind. It’s just micro-visible residue from a time years ago when Cessily got very excited. Something that made heavy metals fly around and get mixed up with pheromones… Oh. Awwww. It’s like a semiconductor, really.”

“What?”

“Traces of mercury mixed with traces of silicon dioxide. Particles. Sand. Together in a gentle storm. Like a long slow kiss. This would have been a few years ago.”

“Cessily and Sooraya,” Doug nods.

“Of course.” And they find Lockheed at the top of the back stairs.

A few pages later Doug falls out of a pink string of tentacles onto a kind of conveyor belt. Maybe it used to be part of the Blackbird hangar. Maybe the Danger Room. A giant crystal ball sort of thing, also pink, glowing, promises to roll towards him.

“I have a history,” Doug says to himself, “of inserting myself into potentially fatal situations despite my lack of combat powers. Hey, Douglas, ever watch a horror movie and right as the idiot is getting ready to do something stupid like touch a weird alien wall and the music gets all creepy…. and of course… the idiot does?”

“Self and selfsoulfriend could always convert threatsource alienwall to technorganic energy, neutralizing threat to self and selfsoulfriend by lifedraining threat,” Doug’s right arm reminds him.

“We don’t like to talk about that,” he says. “But, I mean, yes, it’s an option.”

A few minutes afterwards Kurt, Lockheed, Illyana and Trevor are fighting off Sidri, the space bugs who once threatened the Shi’ar, and they just keep coming. They’re in what used to be the Danger Room.

“The last time these guys showed up Scott and Ororo played… basketball? One on one with powers?” Trevor asks.

“You can see that far back?” Kurt asks. “Also, ja, they did.”

“It’s a spectator sport,” Trevor says. “Lots to see.”

“Always keeping your eye on the ball,” Kurt replies, punching and kicking additional space bugs.

“Can you stop it with the puns?” Illyana’s grimacing as she pushes another front of deadly space beetles away.

“I’ll stop with the puns when you give me a straight answer as to whether your soulsword affects physical material beings or only magical ones,” Trevor says.

“Like I’ve ever given anyone a straight answer,” Illyana says.

“Six quick jumps later,” as the caption says, Illyana finds Doug, in what used to be, maybe, the hangar. She runs to save him but he’s saved himself. No, they have saved themselves: Doug and Warlock, working together. Finally, after who knows how many months or years, Illyana and the other original New Mutants will get to hang out with Warlock again as an independent entity.

Illyana looks surprised and then delighted. It’s good to see Doug and Warlock together, especially when it means Doug’s not in danger when he goes on mutant expeditions.

“How long have you and Warlock been running this game?” she asks, hands smartly on her hips. “And why?”

“Shhhh! Shhh! Friend Illyana secret has to stay a secret for friendsake,” says Warlock, taking the form of a Sidri bug.

“I know something about that,” illyana replies. “I’ve been with my girlfriend for most of my life and we haven’t yet kissed on-panel.”

“Tell me about it,” Doug answers, and then communicates with the space bugs for a while.

“Go ahead, Warlock,” he says at the end of his next speech in English. “Tell them we’re doing it now.”

Illyana rolls her eyes.


End file.
